Classic Poem

Divine rose, that in a pleasant garden,
persuasive with sweet-smelling subtlety,
in crimson mastery impartest beauty
and snowy disciplines of loveliness.

Intimation of the human frame,
epitome of unavailing grace,
in whose being nature did unite
the joyful cradle and the fearsome tomb.

How haughty in thy pomp, presumptuous
and proud, thou dost disdain the threat of death,
and then, dismayed and humbled, showest forth

thy perishable being's withered marks!
Thus with learned death and ignorant life
living thou dost deceive and dying teach.